Author Archive: Jef Burnham

Jef is a writer and educator in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a degree in Media & Cinema Studies from DePaul University, but sometimes he drops it and picks it back up again. He's also the Editor-in-Chief of FilmMonthly.com and is fueled entirely by coffee (as if you couldn't tell).

I love the 50-movie collections Mill Creek Entertainment puts out. I mean, what self-respecting fan of obscure cinema could pass up the opportunity to nab 50 weird and disparate films for less than $20 a piece? Not this guy, I assure you. I’ve got a pile of these things laying around! What I love about […]

Midnight Movie Madness & Killer Creature Features

Director Jack Hill is one of the all-time greats—and I’m not just saying that because he was kind enough to let me pick his brain about filmmaking the Philippines during the early 1970s for nearly an hour one time (the fanboy inside me still squeals at the thought of having done that!). Hill got his […]

The Swinging Cheerleaders

Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988), John De Bello’s follow-up to his 1978 monster movie spoof Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, was a big deal when I was a kid. The animated adaptation of the films, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The Series, aired and re-aired on Saturday mornings from the time I was six […]

Return of the Killer Tomatoes

In celebration of fifteen years of Shrek, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has released the original Shrek in an Anniversary Edition Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD combo pack. Packed with special features and a code for digital versions of Shrek short films, the release gives you a lot of Shrek for your buck. But is it something you […]

Shrek: Anniversary Edition

William Hartnell is no doubt best known today for portraying the irascible first incarnation of The Doctor during the first three years of Doctor Who’s 50+ year history. Seventeen years prior to originating the science fiction role he immortalized, however, Hartnell starred in the noir-ish, British gangster picture, Appointment with Crime (1946), as the vicious […]

Appointment with Crime

Before 2015’s The Wave (Bølgen), Norway’s film industry never produced a disaster film, a subgenre of the action/adventure movie I have personally always adored. This makes The Wave the first of its kind, nationally. And though that might worry some regarding the quality of the film, I can assure you that director Roar Uthaug and […]

The Wave (Bølgen)

American animation studio Filmation produced this serialized adaptation of the Tarzan tales by Edgar Rice Burroughs for CBS beginning in 1976. The series embodies all the most predictable yet charming techniques at Filmation’s disposal including the rotoscoped figures and the oft-recycled sequences of animation that make Filmation cartoons what they are. As someone not well-versed […]

Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle: The Complete Season One

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss of course, only wrote one feature film: a live action musical called The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953). Directed by the legendary Stanley Kramer (It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), it’s a film I’d been eager to see for […]

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

“They’re models. They’re mercenaries. They’re Hired to Kill!” If that had been the tagline to this 1990 actioner from prolific director Nico Mastorakis, it would have suited the tone of the picture all too well. Hired to Kill, now available on Blu-ray and DVD from Arrow video, is sleazy, cheesy, and exactly what I look […]

Hired to Kill

Chances are I don’t have to sell you on seeing Deadpool (2016), because you probably already saw it. A hell of a lot of people did! And if you didn’t, it’s probably because: 1) You’re between the ages of 13 and 16 and couldn’t get into the theater, 2) You were living in a hole […]